Chapter 2: You Should Have Known Sooner

“Son, let Daddy see how you survived...”The man laughed maniacally, slowly raising his twisted arm that no longer looked human.

Bang!

The door shook violently.

The man’s laughter grew more distorted, filled with a chilling excitement.

“Good boy... soon, you’ll see your mother...”

Crash!

Another loud bang, the door lock groaned under the unbearable pressure.

Su Zhan staggered backward, his legs weakening.

His brain screamed to flee, but in reality, there was nowhere to retreat.

He could only watch helplessly as the plaster around the doorframe cracked and fell with each impact.

Crack!

A fissure spread from the door lock.

Through the gap,

Su Zhan saw a bloodshot eye staring fixedly at him.

That eye was filled with a sick delight, like a starving beast finally smelling the blood of its prey.

“Stop hiding... Daddy is coming in now...”

Su Zhan scanned desperately for an escape, but the cramped apartment offered no hiding place.

Damn it!

He had just transmigrated here and was already about to die!

Bang!!!

The door hinge broke.

Su Zhan suddenly retreated, his back slamming hard against the wall.

There was no way out.

Outside the broken doorframe,

The man’s hunched figure slowly straightened.

In the backlight, his silhouette twisted and deformed, like some kind of arthropod stretching its body.

Su Zhan could hear his own pounding heartbeat, almost about to explode.

“Not obedient at all...”

The man tilted his head, his mouth twisting into an incredible arc: “Why hide from Daddy?”

Su Zhan steeled himself and grabbed a chair beside the desk.

Damn it!

When a person’s dead, birds fly to the sky; if they don’t die, they live forever.

Now, whether he retreated or not, it was death either way.

A trapped beast still fights; let alone a human!

He kept cheering himself on inside, as if that could lessen his fear.

But in the next moment,

The man suddenly lunged, moving at an unnatural speed.

Su Zhan’s vision blurred; before he could react,

A heart-wrenching pain erupted in his abdomen.

Pfft.

Five bone spikes pierced through his abdomen without resistance.

Warm blood gushed out, splattering the man’s crazed face.

Su Zhan opened his mouth, horrified as he stared at the spikes embedded in his abdomen.

The pain from the spikes stirring inside blurred his vision.

The spikes slowly rotated.

Su Zhan heard the sound of his flesh being shredded.

He could no longer hold back.

“Ahhh!!!”

His screams echoed in the narrow room.

The man laughed.

His sick laughter mocked Su Zhan’s fear.

Gradually,

Su Zhan’s consciousness began to fade, his screams growing weak.

Was he going to die?

What a disgrace for a transmigrator, not even surviving an hour after arrival.

At the brink of unconsciousness,

A burning heat burst from the wound in his abdomen, rushing through his veins!

Under his skin came a strange writhing sensation.

A layer of gray-black scales spread like a tide from the edges of the wound, instantly covering his entire abdomen.

“This...”

The man’s eyes widened. The bone spikes were still lodged in Su Zhan’s body but suddenly were flung away by a powerful recoil.

Su Zhan’s vision cleared; he looked down at his hands.

His knuckles twisted and elongated, his nails turning into sharp black claws, his arms covered with dense scales.

Most importantly, the bloodied hole in his abdomen was healing visibly, flesh writhing to reconnect.

“I see...”

The shock on the man’s face twisted into a sick excitement: “No wonder you didn’t die... you’re a mutant too!”

Mutant?

The word flashed through Su Zhan’s mind, but he had no time to think.

He clenched his fists, feeling surging power inside.

Muscle fibers and bones strengthened, his senses became extraordinarily sharp.

Fear vanished, replaced by wild joy.

Who cared what kind of monster he was? Surviving was the ultimate truth!

Su Zhan grinned fiercely, almost feral.

Time to stop messing around.

After all, they were now the same kind.

“Same kind, hahaha... same kind!”

The man suddenly trembled with laughter, spreading his arms wide and shouting wildly:

“Welcome to the mutant family! Come, give a hug!”

“Sure.”

Su Zhan whispered, stepping forward slowly.

The moment his foot landed,

The man’s arms mutated violently!

His skin tore open, pale white bone spikes shot out like blades, aiming straight at Su Zhan’s throat!

But Su Zhan was faster.

His prepared claws swung out, accurately grabbing the man’s attacking wrist.

The spikes were only inches from his throat but couldn’t advance further.

With a sudden force, the man’s wrist bone shattered with a snap!

“Ah—!!!”

In his scream,

Su Zhan’s other claw pierced through the man’s chest.

This was the killing blow.

Warm blood sprayed out, splashing his scaled face.

The man looked down in disbelief at his pierced body.

He trembled, lifting his head to meet Su Zhan’s cold gaze.

“How... how could you be prepared...”

“Not exactly prepared.”

Su Zhan said slowly, “If you didn’t attack, I would have.”

“Wha... why...”

The man’s blood-red pupils blurred, his speech growing labored.

“Heh heh...”

Su Zhan smiled, “You don’t really think stabbing me in the abdomen would be forgotten, do you?”

“You... you’re not... Xiao Zhan... Xiao Zhan... you wouldn’t be... like this.”

The man’s eyes filled with unwillingness; his body stiffened and then collapsed with a heavy thud.

“I’m definitely not your son.”

Su Zhan shook the blood off his hands, “Your son is already dead by your own hand. You should have known that long ago.”

After confirming the man was beyond saving with a final strike,

His scales gradually faded, but that surge of power still pulsed within him.

Normally, seeing such a bloody scene would cause physical discomfort.

Nausea, dizziness.

But Su Zhan took a deep breath; the thick smell of blood in the air oddly brought him a hint of... pleasure?

“Mutant.”

Su Zhan whispered this word again.

Before this, he had never witnessed such a bloody scene, nor killed anyone.

Yet now, he felt no discomfort at all.

This must be what it means to be a mutant by nature.

It seemed the heavens had heard his silent plea.

A flood of strange yet familiar memories surged into his mind.

The original body was also named Su Zhan.

He was an ordinary senior high school student at Jiangcheng No.3 High School in Daxia.

This world was a high martial arts world.

Three hundred years ago, disaster struck: the mist invaded, mist creatures attacked Blue Star.

Now, Blue Star had no more than a handful of countries left.

The rest had fallen, covered by the mist.

During this time, spiritual energy revived.

Ten percent of humans became Awakeners, the backbone fighting against the mist.

However, mutants also appeared among humans.

Some experts said mutants were a product of the mist, a means for them to conquer humanity.

Becoming a mutant was completely random; some were born mutants, others awakened in their eighties or nineties.

The original body’s father probably awakened just days ago.

But Awakeners never suddenly mutated into mutants. In the three hundred years since the mist invaded Blue Star, no Awakeners had become mutants.

Mutants looked no different from humans, hiding among the masses but feeding by consumption.

Compared to Awakeners, mutants were weaker.

If a mutant’s identity was discovered and they were captured alive, they would likely break under torture and reveal everything they knew.

There was a theory called the Six Degrees of Separation: anyone could be connected through six people.

Two hundred eighty-six years ago, Daxia launched a purge using this theory.

They publicly claimed to have eliminated 90% of the country’s mutants.

Since then, no mutant dared reveal their identity, even to their own kind.

If discovered, the only way to avoid risk was to kill the other.

This was somewhat similar to the “Dark Forest Law” Su Zhan had learned in his previous life.

The original body’s father was no exception.

Revealing identity meant killing the other, even if it was the same kind, even if it was his own son.

To maintain internal stability, countries established organizations of Awakeners specializing in hunting mutants.

Daxia’s was called the Aberrant Purge Division.

“Damn it!”

Su Zhan looked around the blood-soaked, battle-marked home: “If my mutant identity is exposed, death is the only way out!”

But now, the original body’s parents were brutally murdered at home.

He was the prime suspect!